Jack pulled into the slanted space, popped his seat belt, the gear, the ignition, the door handle all in perfect, practiced order, and slid out into a cool pre-dawn breeze that seemed to promise something not unlike snow, but not exactly like it either. He stretched back. There had been a day he could have done this trip without more than gas stops, but he was getting older now, feeling aches in his bones he'd always known were there, but didn't want to feel.
Slamming the car door, Jack limped, his left hip aching, towards the low brick building. He pissed quickly and barely shook his hands off under the cold water tap. Catching his reflection in the mirror, Jack turned, seeing already and too easily under his eyes the puffiness that would only grow darker by the time he returned this way in seven days.
It was always there in the back of his head, that word- return. One time maybe he would stay and never return, but it was a hope he washed away in a splash of cold tap water trip after trip, letting the watermarks stain his denim dark because he was too lazy to use a towel.